When it comes to Indians and their big fat Indian weddings, it is true that a lot goes into planning them. Marriages might be planned by the almighty but a wedding isn’t.
Divya Chadha, a British-born Indian entrepreneur analysed the gap in between and decided to step into the NRI wedding market to make their wedding dreams a reality. She started A Klass Apart in 2008.
Divya is someone who has travelled all across the globe. She was born in Britain, did her schooling in Dubai and completed her university in Montreal. Even though she bagged a very impressive 9 to 5 job secure job, it didn’t suffice her own satisfactions with her career.
She started her first event business in London, which she then moved to Mumbai, India. Owing to her global travel history, she has connected with a number of NRIs who have expressed their want for a dream wedding.
Her first business, was named Events Horizon Ltd. which was a membership based community that helped access the best parties and the clubbing scenes around in London. The company ran for 8 years, after which it was shut down because of the global recession that hit the world in 2008.
Her journey of wedding planning started when she was approached by a client to organised their engagement and then planned their wedding in London. During that wedding, she took up another request for a destination wedding in Jaipur.
Following the two weddings that she planned, Divya decided to get things right and then set up her base in Mumbai by making an investment of Rs. 1.5 lakh.
But, much like every entrepreneurial journey, her road to success was not easy at all. She struggled the first two years of her life in Mumbai as she was not very well versed with the language here.
“When I spoke to vendors and suppliers, I knew at some level I could be taken for a ride because I struggled with understanding numbers or certain terminologies. Also, it didn’t help that I had and still have a heavy English accent,” said Divya to YourStory.
As per report from KPMG, the valuation of the Indian wedding industry is around $40-50 billion. It is the second largest market right after US. But, given the fact that weddings are a seasonal affair, getting clients became quite tough.
Currently, Divya takes up 5-6 weddings in a year because it takes her around 12-18 months to plan the entire wedding and set everything up. The wedding budget estimate for each of them is around Rs. 1.5 to 2 crore. The management charges 10-15% of the entire cost of the wedding.
What is the secret to success?
Divya runs the entire start-up on her own. While she had her cousin help her out initially for the first 3 years with some of the onsite work, they later shifted to Spain. She also doesn’t have a permanent staff on board.
Divya has hired a number of interns along her journey to help her out in the weddings that she plans. She also has a few select individuals who help her on project to project basis work.
Aside from the main business of being a wedding planner, Divya also runs a coaching business, also known as the AKA The Wedding Coach.
Divya said that she works almost 18-20 hours during the wedding seasons but somehow finds time for herself and to chill around at work as well. She tries to make her meetings fun by hosting them in pools and so on and so forth.
What kind of challenges does one face?
One of the biggest obstacles that Divya has faced with her business is not being taken seriously because she is a woman. She has also lost a number of potential clients because they didn’t expect a woman to run the enterprise.
Because she is an NRI, there have been potential clients who have tried to be extremely “friendly” with her. But, owing to how bold her character is, Divya has always managed to put them in their right place.
During one of the first weddings that she planned, the client had a lot of added demands that she made sure to cope up with. Because of how satisfied they were with her work, she felt better with the results. But, when she approached them asking for the payment, they refused to pay.
That was a turning point in her career and she went back and learned from her mistakes. She made her contracts more fool proof and ensured to add clauses and pointers so that she never had to face all of these issues ever again.
How does the future of the business look like?
Even with the world suffering from a pandemic, Divya completed her last wedding in February 2020. She was already in talks with a couple who wanted to get married in December of 2020. These plans have currently been put on hold but in the meantime, Divya is helping out the potential couples plan their wedding for the coming year of 2021 and 2022.
Once the lockdowns are lifted across the country, she is pretty sure that she can get back on road with her work, by ensuring certain social distancing rules and necessary hygiene practices.
Divya also plans to recycle the flowers she uses in the future weddings instead of throwing them away. She also wants to make the weddings more eco-friendly henceforth.
During the period of self isolation, Divya has been focusing on extending her coaching business which further focuses on providing personal coaching for the individuals who want to scale their businesses to greater heights.
Divya is also in the process of developing her own wedding course, the AKA Wedding Course for the individuals who want to tap into this industry.
